Infinity color mask magic

As I was adding infinity color masks to the TK7 panel, Sean Bagshaw was busy recording his Sean’s Favorite Photoshop Techniques, Volume 2 series. The download folder for that series contains lots of good color images, and I experimented with some to make sure the new infinity color masks offered something useful and unique for other people’s images, not just my own. They do, and I sent some quick edits to Sean to show him how I’d used the masks on his images.

Sean took these tests and incorporated them into the Quick Tip video below. And, not surprisingly, he’s gone well beyond my own attempts at using the masks and came up with some innovative ways to take infinity color masks to the next level.

This video is a little longer than the other Quick Tips, but it moves fast. Sean covers the basics of using infinity color masks and then demonstrates using them on six different images. Here are some things to pay close attention to as you watch the video:

Try to choose a color that actually has some decent color. Remember, these are color-based masks, and if you choose a weak color (low saturation), you’ll get a weak (dark) mask. When creating an infinity color mask, the Color Picker eyedropper extracts the hue value of the selected pixels to build the mask around. The saturation levels of that hue in the image then determines the brightness of the mask. This means that low-saturated colors will still be dark in the mask. So, as much as possible, click on colorful colors to make the best and brightest masks.

The initial mask preview is extremely accurate, but modification can sometimes create an even better mask. One of the great features with for infinity color masks is that you get to choose the color from the image and the mask is built around that selection. As such, the original mask preview is always on target, and in several of his examples, where this initial mask is essentially perfect, Sean just uses it as is to adjust the image. At other times, though, he first experiments with adjusting the color range or modifying the mask using the tools in the MODIFY section of the RapidMask module. MODIFY is especially helpful for darker masks where a less-saturated color was the target for generating the infinity color mask preview. The key to success in all cases is to start with a mask properly focused on a specific color selected from the image. And since this is the core process for generating an infinity color mask, the initial mask is always a great starting point. Once it’s available, there are lots of opportunities to customize the mask depending on what you’d like to do to your image.

Infinity color masks aren’t just for color adjustments. One of the things that really comes through in watching Sean work on these images is the variety of different techniques he employs. Infinity color masks are used to adjust color, saturation, brightness, and contrast. And he uses them with Curves, Levels, Hue/Saturation, Brightness/Contrast, and Solid Color adjustment layers to achieve the desired effect. This illustrates a good point, I think. To really get the most out of these infinity “color” masks it’s necessary to let go of the “color” concept and simply start seeing them as new precision masks for making targeted adjustments. Just like luminosity masks can be used to make adjustments other than brightness, infinity color masks aren’t restricted to adjusting color. When you start seeing these different types of pixel-based masks as a continuum of masking possibilities, the full power of what they can do really starts to take shape.

If you have Sean’s Favorite Photoshop Techniques, Volume 2 video series, you might want to go into the practice images folder and follow along with what he’s doing here. Working along with Sean will help you see where and how you might be able to apply infinity color masks to your own images.

Finally, just a quick reminder that everything on my website’s Panels & Videos page, including the TK7 panel with infinity color masks and Sean’s Favorite Photoshop Techniques, Volume 2, is 20% off through the month of September with the following discount code: Update20

It is funny, but playing with the new infinity color mask tools, I went to exactly the same “place” that Sean demonstrates.It seems I had automatically assumed that once I had accepted the color mask, it could be adapted and modified just like the other TK masks. Talk about being intuitively incorporated into my post work! Just like Rob, above, what would I do without this great set of tools? Thanks to both of you!